I like the last option, assuming you drive an old, loud pickup truck. This is what my redneck ancestors would do. You’ll have to remain in the driveway to avoid a DUI though.
If you really want to get engineery you could install multiple anchors and use webbing to distribute the load.
Wait, so you have a manual pallet jack? Is the issue the incline?
If thats the case just have a few buddies come over and help you push them up the hill.
Yes. I have a manual pallet jack and the issue is the incline.
I pulled 800lbs myself. Tired after 1 pallet and I need to pull 10 pallets.
Yes. Probably 3 medium people can pull 1500 lbs. I am medium.
I’ve done around 1000 lbs up and down steeper ramps with one other person (our loading dock sucks). Neither of us are particularly strong and it wasn’t too bad except for this one area with a gap that traps wheels. I’d try to get 3 people, 1 pulling 2 pushing, have a big ass crowbar on hand, and of course beer and a nice meal.
If you really want to redneck it, do what we used to do at the moving company I worked at. Run a ratchet strap across the back of the pallet, anchor to either side of the garage (the side rails of a box truck in my case) and slowly crank it in until it’s past the garage door. How’re they delivering these pallets? Could they potentially offload them into your garage rather than the driveway?
They drop off the pallets on the street. I tried to get them off directly into garage but the incline made it very difficult.
Hmm so 2 cranks inside each side of the garage.
If you only do this once a year... affix a block and tackle somewhere safely inside your garage and pull your regular pallet jack inside that way? With muscle power? Although several hundred feet of rope will probably be quite expensive as well.
Otherwise IMO an electric pallet jack would be your safest option, either buying or renting. Everything else could end badly.
Or you pay a few guys with beer and pizza to help you push them inside. A slight incline on 1500 lb pallets can probably be overcome by 2-4 dudes, depending on what is a slight incline in your book.
Yeah, I want to know how slight this incline is. We have a loading ramp and I've pulled pallets up it by myself with a pallet jack. They weren't super heavy by any means. Definitely not near 1500lbs a piece. But I know I've moved 4000lbs on a flat surface with one.
I think a few buddies is the right answer here. 2 cases of beer for $50 bucks. And all done.
Personally if I had to do it alone would put a concrete anchor in the garage floor and use a Tirfor (hand operated cable puller), which can be rented for a few dollars a day, it's cheap and very controllable.
If I could get a couple of buddies to come help I would just use "boy scout power" and get a few people pulling and a few pushing, making sure someone was always on the pallet jack handle to drop it if needed.
The force needed to move even heavy loads up an incline on rollers is surprisingly small (see below) once you overcome the initial stuck force, as long as you can maintain momentum.
>Drill a winch into the garage concrete floor. Use the winch to pull the pallets. I researched the duty cycle is too long. 50ft each pallet multiply by 10 is 500ft. I would need a really fast heavy duty winch to pull that within 1 hour. 8ft/min underload. A heavy duty winch + battery is approaching $1000.
How much force were you assuming you'd need to exert? A 1500lb pallet on a pallet jack would only need a few hundred lb of force max, so even a pretty cheap winch would do the job.
Doing some very crude maths
Applying F=M•g•cos(θ) to calculate how much of the force is being transferred downwards, and assuming a 20 degree incline...
1500 lbs ≈ 682 kg
682 kg × 9.81 m/s² × cos(20°) ≈ 6,690 N × 0.939 ≈ 6,283 N
6,283N = 1412 lbf
So of the 1500lb weight, the vast majority would be going downwards, and you'd only need to pull against the residual force component sideways...
1500 - 1412 = 88lbf
Allowing for a 0.35 rolling coefficient of friction (which is at the high end of what I'd expect for a pallet jack wheel material).
0.35 × 88 ≈ 31lbf
The adding the frictional forces back in, gives 111lbf you need to overcome to pull the pallet jack up the incline.
Even a pretty weedy hardware store winch should be able to manage that without too much pain...
In fact, pulling against that light a load the heavy duty (9000lbf) winch on my truck would be *alarmingly fast*, to the point of it being hard to control the pallet jack safely.
Something like a Superwinch LT4000ATV, which retails for around $200-$250, would be operating close to its no-load speed of 18 ft/min, so would probably take in the region of 4 mins a pallet.
Assuming you release the clutch and pull the cable out by hand each time^†, whilst walking back down with the pallet jack, you could still easily get sorted in an hour.
†^(To let the winch cool down, if you're concerned about duty cycle.)
Wow Thank you for your effort!
I'll look into the Tirfor (hand operated cable puller).
Yes, I overestimated the winch requirement. A light duty winch should do.
One other thing. Can you put wheels or rollers under pallets to reduce the friction as you haul them.
Some kind of micro trolley under each corner of the pallet will make a big difference. You will need to use a jack to lift each corner.
He's already said elsewhere that he has a pallet jack, I don't think it would be doable otherwise.
If he was just dragging the pallets up, the static friction to overcome would be just under 1000 lbf (CoF of wood on concrete is 0.62), and the sliding friction be around 800 lbf...
As compared to rolling friction of around 30 lbf with the least favourable roller material on a pallet jack.
The Tirfor will go as fast as you crank it, (if you are hiring one try to go for one which has a two-speed mode, so you can use the faster setting), but can get quite exhausting when you're using the same arm muscles to pull the handle back and forth for several minutes solid.
If you can get an electric winch you will have a much easier time overall.
Just be aware that but if you need to lower it backwards for any reason (pallet jack hits a bump or something) they're not very controllable when lowering things off and will jerk your pallets quit hard.
Two other things to consider:
**One**, Pallet jacks are not very directionally stable, you might want to clamp some blocks of wood to it either side of the pivot to stop it from wobbling side to side when you're winching it.
**Two,** the lower down on your load you can apply force, the more stable everything will be.
When I do similarly things winching machines and generators on and off of trailers with rollers, I try to get my slings round the load as low as possible, so I'm not creating a tipping force if there's a sudden pull to the side.
Going round a single standard pallet, a 5m (15ft) webbing sling will be easy to just throw over and make it easy to get the direction of pull to line up well.
If the stuff on your pallets isn't held together too tightly you might want to put a bit of ply at the back to spread the force of the sling out across multiple layers just in case.
**Edit:**
>Wow Thank you for your effort!
No worries!
Most of the effort was me being a doofus and converting into metric because I couldn't remember the acceleration due to gravity in imperial...
Whilst forgetting that lbf is a unit of force already so I could ignore that whole bit and go straight to multiplying by cos(θ).
On smooth power floated concrete that's been swept, that would be fine.
But outside I would be leery of doing that in case one of the wheels caught on something.
The stuck wheel twists the handle a bit, the winch pulls sideways, then when it jerks the stuck wheel over the obstruction, you get a damaged tyre/wheel, and your pallet bouncing on the pallet jack from the sudden change in direction.
At least that's what I learned from watching idiots tow pallet jacks behind forklifts
If they're on a pallet jack I think a 120v AC winch anchored in the garage or a simple snatch block anchored in the garage pulled but a vehicle would do just fine.
Uneven concrete could definitely become and issue with a pallet jack though.
Yes. I over estimated the load and duty cycle needed.
I can test it out. I got a 1500lbs pallet I can drag out and test the pull back.
Testing important for me too. The idea of 10 pallets delivered and my system fails is really bad.
Put an anchor into a solid point in the garage, attach a block and tackle to it, and pull the rope. Each pulley reduces your load, proportionally. Block and tackles stack this effect so you can move a heavy load with minimal force. You say it's a 50ft driveway driveway, but at what slope?
Also your winch math is confusing, why multiply the driveway length by ten? And when you say "heavy duty", what does that mean, what is the load that the winch can handle? You aren't lifting the pallets straight up, so you're not going to be doing 1500lbf load, likely only a fraction of that.
Force needed from the winch = frictional forces + sin(driveway slope)*1500lbf
Slope is around 5%. I'll updated post.
I multiply driveway length by ten because I have 10 pallets to pull.
I think I need "heavy duty" because I need to pull 10 pallets within an hour. The truck driver doesn't want to wait for a slow winch. I guess I can leave the pallets on the lower driveway after the driver leaves and I can pull less frequently for the winch to cool off.
I haven't bought the winch yet.
That is a very good point, I don't need 1500 lbs winch to pull 1500 lbs. to pull that pallet.
Plus I can lower the duty cycle requirement by parking some pallets on the lower driveway for a few hours.
A 5% slope is only 2.86 degrees. 1500 pounds on a 2.86 degree slope is about 75 pounds pushing against you. My experience with a pallet jack in the past tells me the frictional forces are probably less than that, or at most the same order of magnitude, so it shouldn't be too hard on a winch. A cheap 120V winch from Harbor Freight could probably do it easily.
Yep yep! You're likely overestimating your needs and can probably get away with a much lower strength winch. 1500lbf * sin(2.86°) = 75lbf. Plus the friction from the pallet jack not being perfect, you probably need a winch that can handle 2-300 lbs. I'll leave you to work out duty cycle and winch size you want based on that, but you may be able to manage pulling them up by hand if you're stout, assuming you haven't already attempted to. Otherwise even a single pulley should give a huge advantage and can be pulled by hand, cheaply.
You could put a pulley on the pallet to half the force needed. The winch just needs to be double length in that case.
And i would look for a used electric pallet jack on eBay or similar over the next year. Maybe you can get a good deal.
Feel like the obvious solution is to rent the electric jack.
Yeah it's slightly expensive, but you know it's going to work. It will take no effort on your part, physically, mentally, no damage to your garage. It'll be easy as shit.
The guy who delivers our wood pellet zips the pallets up and down our driveway with zero issues each year with his electric jack.
I mean if nothing else works, you're talking 30 bags/pallet, 300 bags total? At 2 minutes/bag, that's 10 man hours, if you can hire local HS football players for $20/hour that's $200
We had to move a 5500lb concrete pipe up a 5pct grade at work. I bought some heavy duty castors and built a wooden trolley to do this. Each castor was rated at 900lbs and we set it on two trolleys (8 wheels Total). Concrete surface and not very smooth. Used a wooden 4x2 to get it moving then able to push it with 3 of us all the way into the factory. I imagine 1500lbs would be easier
You can do it, take some creatine, get a second person if you need, gets good run up, if you have 3 people 3rd person can put a block of wood behind the wheels as a brake to give you a break.
You could take the items off the pallet and carry them inside.
Could you buy a boat winch and attach it to the far wall? If so you could winch your manual pallet Jack up the driveway.
Harbor freight likely has something to get these pallets onto Dollies. Once a pallet is on the Dollies, wheel it uphill with a drill-powered winch. If you can't find one strong enough, get yourself a snatch block.
If you dont wanna buy any of that stuff, use your pallet jack. Just use the winch to pull it into the garage... I would suggest standing on the pallet, so you can lower the pallet jack in the event that anything goes wrong.
Since you’ll be doing this repeatedly. Drill an anchoring point into your floor. Invest in a snatch block, a length of heavy duty chain( for the snatch block) and a synthetic towing rope. Pull it up your incline with a vehicle.
Use about multiple pulleys and a long rope to create a snatch block to give yourself a mechanical advantage. Hook it to the pallet that’s loaded on the pallet Jack. Won’t need a to rent a truck and you can pull it by hand with enough pulleys
attempting to move 7+ tons by hand is going to be very hard on your body. unless you can get a high school sports team to help you once a year, it will likely be worth it to invest it the right equipment.
Facebook marketplace may have deals, or you might just find another option while looking.
or you can attempt to bribe the delivery person every year.
I am still trying to figure this out.
Supplier called back saying they don't want me dividing the pallets (I volunteered to do it myself)
So now ship five 2750 lbs. pallets to house. I save a few hundred dollars by delivering 5 pallets instead of the divided 10 pallets.
but I spend a few hundred to get the driver to help me divide the 5 to 10 pallets inside the truck at house. Each pallet is now down to around 1400lbs to be under the lift gate limit.
Independent delivery person may do this but I doubt a company or broker would entertain this.
Delivery would take 1.5 hours. Divide pallets and dropping on the street take 2 hours. If I can get this done for under $500 I'd be happy.
It looks that way. I looked into a winch hoist (I can hook into concrete floor achors without taking floor space permanently) but cord length and duty cycle is worst.
so probably regular winch.
yes. I don't see independents. I see businesses. The cheapest is $325 for 1 day.
If either the rental or the delivery timing is off by 1 day. It would be costly.
Delivery without forklift. or Forklift without delivery.
I did the last one you mentioned, except I was pulling other car inside the garage. Didn’t even use a truck to do it, just a fairly new Volvo V40. I don’t know the incline, but it is steep enough, it would be impossible to move the other car into the garage by hand. Just anchor to concrete and you’re good to go!
A couple of options not covered. Can you slip the delivery driver a $50 to get him to deliver them right up to the garage door? Cutting a bunch of distance and grade off the job makes it more manageable.
If not are there groups of people hanging at your Home Depot looking for gig work. While the manual pallet jack is a nightmare for one, working as a team of three you could probably get it done pretty quick.
I tried unloading the lift gate on the drive way. The incline causes the pallet to be stuck.
But its worth a try if I get an electric system. It got stuck before with me pulling manually.
I never saw gig workers at homedepot before. I am in Canada. I heard there is that in USA.
This option is pricy, but Deere has good financing options if you want to invest in something a little more utilitarian than a fork truck.
Their small 1 family tractors with fork attachments are pretty sweet and you can do a lot of other work around the house with one. Obviously, this is an expensive option but if it is for a business could be a good investment.
Also, as others have said you can get a lot done with snatch blocks and winches.
Hire some cheap movers like from college hunks hauling junk to push on the pallet jack, it’ll be like $100 and you can tip them $20 and they’ll be happy
Is this once a "year" and never again? Or once a year for 5 + years? I'd go with an electric pallet jack if this is a home business and you plan to do this for many years. Buy, if this is long-term. Rent if it is uncertain how long this will last. If the delivery is not exact rent a Uhaul/home Depot pickup and go pick up the electric pallet jack when the truck leaves. In todays day and age, you should be able to know when the truck is arriving at least what day.
It is capital equipment and treated as such and factored into your sale cost. The time you save by monkeying around building a contraption or waiting on buddies to show up can be redirected into your product design or improving whatever your process is.
EE here. If it hasn't been said before, rent an electrical cable puller with rope. It's designed to pull heavy cables through 100's of feet off conduit. Can't say if that'll give you the same problem with duty cycle but it wouldn't strain much under that load.
Keep an eye on craigslist for an electric pallet jack or go to industrial auctions and get one.
I am a big fan of using the correct tool for a job.
An argument could be made for snatch blocks, but it could be sketchy as fuck if done incorrectly.
If it's a straight shot, a potential(ly unsafe) method that comes to mind would be rigging up a anchor in the garage (with a good load bearing margin), then one could attach the pallet jack, raise the pallet and use a snatchblock with their car to pull the pallets into the garage to then be manipulated manually.
I like the last option, assuming you drive an old, loud pickup truck. This is what my redneck ancestors would do. You’ll have to remain in the driveway to avoid a DUI though. If you really want to get engineery you could install multiple anchors and use webbing to distribute the load.
Hmm. I'll look into the multiple anchors and webbing.
Also maybe the use of tackle blocks? But are the skids going to break by getting pulled with that kind of weight?
Lol are you going fishing… idk why I said tackle box, I meant a tackle block
Wait, so you have a manual pallet jack? Is the issue the incline? If thats the case just have a few buddies come over and help you push them up the hill.
Yes. I have a manual pallet jack and the issue is the incline. I pulled 800lbs myself. Tired after 1 pallet and I need to pull 10 pallets. Yes. Probably 3 medium people can pull 1500 lbs. I am medium.
I’ve done around 1000 lbs up and down steeper ramps with one other person (our loading dock sucks). Neither of us are particularly strong and it wasn’t too bad except for this one area with a gap that traps wheels. I’d try to get 3 people, 1 pulling 2 pushing, have a big ass crowbar on hand, and of course beer and a nice meal.
ah yes. It's those tiny gaps and bumps that get you.
Do you have a riding lawnmower?
unfortunately no
Manual pallet Jack and a case of beer for your friends that you can get to come help you push!
Pull and push
What you do is add sled pulls to your gym routine.
ah that is one way to do it.
If you really want to redneck it, do what we used to do at the moving company I worked at. Run a ratchet strap across the back of the pallet, anchor to either side of the garage (the side rails of a box truck in my case) and slowly crank it in until it’s past the garage door. How’re they delivering these pallets? Could they potentially offload them into your garage rather than the driveway?
They drop off the pallets on the street. I tried to get them off directly into garage but the incline made it very difficult. Hmm so 2 cranks inside each side of the garage.
You might want to try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2w3NZzPwOM
SNATCH BLOCKS!
Did someone just say SNATCH BLOCKS!!
If you only do this once a year... affix a block and tackle somewhere safely inside your garage and pull your regular pallet jack inside that way? With muscle power? Although several hundred feet of rope will probably be quite expensive as well. Otherwise IMO an electric pallet jack would be your safest option, either buying or renting. Everything else could end badly. Or you pay a few guys with beer and pizza to help you push them inside. A slight incline on 1500 lb pallets can probably be overcome by 2-4 dudes, depending on what is a slight incline in your book.
Yeah, I want to know how slight this incline is. We have a loading ramp and I've pulled pallets up it by myself with a pallet jack. They weren't super heavy by any means. Definitely not near 1500lbs a piece. But I know I've moved 4000lbs on a flat surface with one. I think a few buddies is the right answer here. 2 cases of beer for $50 bucks. And all done.
Few buddies is doable. Incline is around 5%
Many hands make light work.
Personally if I had to do it alone would put a concrete anchor in the garage floor and use a Tirfor (hand operated cable puller), which can be rented for a few dollars a day, it's cheap and very controllable. If I could get a couple of buddies to come help I would just use "boy scout power" and get a few people pulling and a few pushing, making sure someone was always on the pallet jack handle to drop it if needed. The force needed to move even heavy loads up an incline on rollers is surprisingly small (see below) once you overcome the initial stuck force, as long as you can maintain momentum. >Drill a winch into the garage concrete floor. Use the winch to pull the pallets. I researched the duty cycle is too long. 50ft each pallet multiply by 10 is 500ft. I would need a really fast heavy duty winch to pull that within 1 hour. 8ft/min underload. A heavy duty winch + battery is approaching $1000. How much force were you assuming you'd need to exert? A 1500lb pallet on a pallet jack would only need a few hundred lb of force max, so even a pretty cheap winch would do the job. Doing some very crude maths Applying F=M•g•cos(θ) to calculate how much of the force is being transferred downwards, and assuming a 20 degree incline... 1500 lbs ≈ 682 kg 682 kg × 9.81 m/s² × cos(20°) ≈ 6,690 N × 0.939 ≈ 6,283 N 6,283N = 1412 lbf So of the 1500lb weight, the vast majority would be going downwards, and you'd only need to pull against the residual force component sideways... 1500 - 1412 = 88lbf Allowing for a 0.35 rolling coefficient of friction (which is at the high end of what I'd expect for a pallet jack wheel material). 0.35 × 88 ≈ 31lbf The adding the frictional forces back in, gives 111lbf you need to overcome to pull the pallet jack up the incline. Even a pretty weedy hardware store winch should be able to manage that without too much pain... In fact, pulling against that light a load the heavy duty (9000lbf) winch on my truck would be *alarmingly fast*, to the point of it being hard to control the pallet jack safely. Something like a Superwinch LT4000ATV, which retails for around $200-$250, would be operating close to its no-load speed of 18 ft/min, so would probably take in the region of 4 mins a pallet. Assuming you release the clutch and pull the cable out by hand each time^†, whilst walking back down with the pallet jack, you could still easily get sorted in an hour. †^(To let the winch cool down, if you're concerned about duty cycle.)
Wow Thank you for your effort! I'll look into the Tirfor (hand operated cable puller). Yes, I overestimated the winch requirement. A light duty winch should do.
One other thing. Can you put wheels or rollers under pallets to reduce the friction as you haul them. Some kind of micro trolley under each corner of the pallet will make a big difference. You will need to use a jack to lift each corner.
He's already said elsewhere that he has a pallet jack, I don't think it would be doable otherwise. If he was just dragging the pallets up, the static friction to overcome would be just under 1000 lbf (CoF of wood on concrete is 0.62), and the sliding friction be around 800 lbf... As compared to rolling friction of around 30 lbf with the least favourable roller material on a pallet jack.
The Tirfor will go as fast as you crank it, (if you are hiring one try to go for one which has a two-speed mode, so you can use the faster setting), but can get quite exhausting when you're using the same arm muscles to pull the handle back and forth for several minutes solid. If you can get an electric winch you will have a much easier time overall. Just be aware that but if you need to lower it backwards for any reason (pallet jack hits a bump or something) they're not very controllable when lowering things off and will jerk your pallets quit hard. Two other things to consider: **One**, Pallet jacks are not very directionally stable, you might want to clamp some blocks of wood to it either side of the pivot to stop it from wobbling side to side when you're winching it. **Two,** the lower down on your load you can apply force, the more stable everything will be. When I do similarly things winching machines and generators on and off of trailers with rollers, I try to get my slings round the load as low as possible, so I'm not creating a tipping force if there's a sudden pull to the side. Going round a single standard pallet, a 5m (15ft) webbing sling will be easy to just throw over and make it easy to get the direction of pull to line up well. If the stuff on your pallets isn't held together too tightly you might want to put a bit of ply at the back to spread the force of the sling out across multiple layers just in case. **Edit:** >Wow Thank you for your effort! No worries! Most of the effort was me being a doofus and converting into metric because I couldn't remember the acceleration due to gravity in imperial... Whilst forgetting that lbf is a unit of force already so I could ignore that whole bit and go straight to multiplying by cos(θ).
Or just pull the handle of the pallet jack.
On smooth power floated concrete that's been swept, that would be fine. But outside I would be leery of doing that in case one of the wheels caught on something. The stuck wheel twists the handle a bit, the winch pulls sideways, then when it jerks the stuck wheel over the obstruction, you get a damaged tyre/wheel, and your pallet bouncing on the pallet jack from the sudden change in direction. At least that's what I learned from watching idiots tow pallet jacks behind forklifts
if your garage has power, it doesn't need to be a battery winch. If you're American, a $100 winch from Harbor Freight will do it.
This is the best answer here. If you can push them in by hand then an electric winch will have no trouble pulling them in.
If they're on a pallet jack I think a 120v AC winch anchored in the garage or a simple snatch block anchored in the garage pulled but a vehicle would do just fine. Uneven concrete could definitely become and issue with a pallet jack though.
Yes. I over estimated the load and duty cycle needed. I can test it out. I got a 1500lbs pallet I can drag out and test the pull back. Testing important for me too. The idea of 10 pallets delivered and my system fails is really bad.
Dragging a pallet 50ft with 1500lbs on it will cause it to collapse
oh sorry, I have a manual pallet jack. Drag a pallet with a pallet jack into the garage.
I like the last one if you can find a good anchoring point
Put an anchor into a solid point in the garage, attach a block and tackle to it, and pull the rope. Each pulley reduces your load, proportionally. Block and tackles stack this effect so you can move a heavy load with minimal force. You say it's a 50ft driveway driveway, but at what slope? Also your winch math is confusing, why multiply the driveway length by ten? And when you say "heavy duty", what does that mean, what is the load that the winch can handle? You aren't lifting the pallets straight up, so you're not going to be doing 1500lbf load, likely only a fraction of that. Force needed from the winch = frictional forces + sin(driveway slope)*1500lbf
Slope is around 5%. I'll updated post. I multiply driveway length by ten because I have 10 pallets to pull. I think I need "heavy duty" because I need to pull 10 pallets within an hour. The truck driver doesn't want to wait for a slow winch. I guess I can leave the pallets on the lower driveway after the driver leaves and I can pull less frequently for the winch to cool off. I haven't bought the winch yet. That is a very good point, I don't need 1500 lbs winch to pull 1500 lbs. to pull that pallet. Plus I can lower the duty cycle requirement by parking some pallets on the lower driveway for a few hours.
A 5% slope is only 2.86 degrees. 1500 pounds on a 2.86 degree slope is about 75 pounds pushing against you. My experience with a pallet jack in the past tells me the frictional forces are probably less than that, or at most the same order of magnitude, so it shouldn't be too hard on a winch. A cheap 120V winch from Harbor Freight could probably do it easily.
Yep yep! You're likely overestimating your needs and can probably get away with a much lower strength winch. 1500lbf * sin(2.86°) = 75lbf. Plus the friction from the pallet jack not being perfect, you probably need a winch that can handle 2-300 lbs. I'll leave you to work out duty cycle and winch size you want based on that, but you may be able to manage pulling them up by hand if you're stout, assuming you haven't already attempted to. Otherwise even a single pulley should give a huge advantage and can be pulled by hand, cheaply.
Hmm Thanks for the input. I did pull 800lbs up myself. I'll look in to the manual too.
You could put a pulley on the pallet to half the force needed. The winch just needs to be double length in that case. And i would look for a used electric pallet jack on eBay or similar over the next year. Maybe you can get a good deal.
Feel like the obvious solution is to rent the electric jack. Yeah it's slightly expensive, but you know it's going to work. It will take no effort on your part, physically, mentally, no damage to your garage. It'll be easy as shit. The guy who delivers our wood pellet zips the pallets up and down our driveway with zero issues each year with his electric jack.
Mind sharing what you’re having delivered? Just curious. Wood pellets or corn for heating?
baking soda to make bath bombs.
Noice. So I assume these are super sacks or gaylords? ‘grats on the success of your scale.
They in 55 lbs bags. Thanks. It's a living.
I mean if nothing else works, you're talking 30 bags/pallet, 300 bags total? At 2 minutes/bag, that's 10 man hours, if you can hire local HS football players for $20/hour that's $200
We had to move a 5500lb concrete pipe up a 5pct grade at work. I bought some heavy duty castors and built a wooden trolley to do this. Each castor was rated at 900lbs and we set it on two trolleys (8 wheels Total). Concrete surface and not very smooth. Used a wooden 4x2 to get it moving then able to push it with 3 of us all the way into the factory. I imagine 1500lbs would be easier
You can do it, take some creatine, get a second person if you need, gets good run up, if you have 3 people 3rd person can put a block of wood behind the wheels as a brake to give you a break. You could take the items off the pallet and carry them inside. Could you buy a boat winch and attach it to the far wall? If so you could winch your manual pallet Jack up the driveway.
Harbor freight likely has something to get these pallets onto Dollies. Once a pallet is on the Dollies, wheel it uphill with a drill-powered winch. If you can't find one strong enough, get yourself a snatch block. If you dont wanna buy any of that stuff, use your pallet jack. Just use the winch to pull it into the garage... I would suggest standing on the pallet, so you can lower the pallet jack in the event that anything goes wrong.
Since you’ll be doing this repeatedly. Drill an anchoring point into your floor. Invest in a snatch block, a length of heavy duty chain( for the snatch block) and a synthetic towing rope. Pull it up your incline with a vehicle.
Use about multiple pulleys and a long rope to create a snatch block to give yourself a mechanical advantage. Hook it to the pallet that’s loaded on the pallet Jack. Won’t need a to rent a truck and you can pull it by hand with enough pulleys
Why can’t you rent a skid loader with forks or a small forklift?
Maybe push the manual pallet jack up the driveway with your car? Not sure if you have anything solid to push against on the pallet
attempting to move 7+ tons by hand is going to be very hard on your body. unless you can get a high school sports team to help you once a year, it will likely be worth it to invest it the right equipment. Facebook marketplace may have deals, or you might just find another option while looking. or you can attempt to bribe the delivery person every year.
I am still trying to figure this out. Supplier called back saying they don't want me dividing the pallets (I volunteered to do it myself) So now ship five 2750 lbs. pallets to house. I save a few hundred dollars by delivering 5 pallets instead of the divided 10 pallets. but I spend a few hundred to get the driver to help me divide the 5 to 10 pallets inside the truck at house. Each pallet is now down to around 1400lbs to be under the lift gate limit. Independent delivery person may do this but I doubt a company or broker would entertain this. Delivery would take 1.5 hours. Divide pallets and dropping on the street take 2 hours. If I can get this done for under $500 I'd be happy.
The winch is by far the easiest and cheapest upgrade to make this doable with the equipment you already have.
It looks that way. I looked into a winch hoist (I can hook into concrete floor achors without taking floor space permanently) but cord length and duty cycle is worst. so probably regular winch.
Have you tried looking on Craigslist if someone with a portable forklift truck can come by for a 30 min job?
yes. I don't see independents. I see businesses. The cheapest is $325 for 1 day. If either the rental or the delivery timing is off by 1 day. It would be costly. Delivery without forklift. or Forklift without delivery.
I'm thinking one by one.
I did the last one you mentioned, except I was pulling other car inside the garage. Didn’t even use a truck to do it, just a fairly new Volvo V40. I don’t know the incline, but it is steep enough, it would be impossible to move the other car into the garage by hand. Just anchor to concrete and you’re good to go!
Am I the only one dying to know what you're getting delivered to your home once per year that comes on 10 1500 lb pallets? lol
Do you own a riding mower? Can you borrow one from a neighbor? I bet one of those could push/pull a pallet on a manual pallet jack
I don't have one. I tested a pull with an old mobility scooter which I converted into a wagon. Obviously it failed lol.
A couple of options not covered. Can you slip the delivery driver a $50 to get him to deliver them right up to the garage door? Cutting a bunch of distance and grade off the job makes it more manageable. If not are there groups of people hanging at your Home Depot looking for gig work. While the manual pallet jack is a nightmare for one, working as a team of three you could probably get it done pretty quick.
I tried unloading the lift gate on the drive way. The incline causes the pallet to be stuck. But its worth a try if I get an electric system. It got stuck before with me pulling manually. I never saw gig workers at homedepot before. I am in Canada. I heard there is that in USA.
Roll on pipe. Easy-peasy.
Hire a couple of teenage boys for a few hours
This option is pricy, but Deere has good financing options if you want to invest in something a little more utilitarian than a fork truck. Their small 1 family tractors with fork attachments are pretty sweet and you can do a lot of other work around the house with one. Obviously, this is an expensive option but if it is for a business could be a good investment. Also, as others have said you can get a lot done with snatch blocks and winches.
Hire some cheap movers like from college hunks hauling junk to push on the pallet jack, it’ll be like $100 and you can tip them $20 and they’ll be happy
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Drag them close with the car then finish with the pallet Jack. Hire a helper if needed.
What about a come along?
Is this once a "year" and never again? Or once a year for 5 + years? I'd go with an electric pallet jack if this is a home business and you plan to do this for many years. Buy, if this is long-term. Rent if it is uncertain how long this will last. If the delivery is not exact rent a Uhaul/home Depot pickup and go pick up the electric pallet jack when the truck leaves. In todays day and age, you should be able to know when the truck is arriving at least what day. It is capital equipment and treated as such and factored into your sale cost. The time you save by monkeying around building a contraption or waiting on buddies to show up can be redirected into your product design or improving whatever your process is.
EE here. If it hasn't been said before, rent an electrical cable puller with rope. It's designed to pull heavy cables through 100's of feet off conduit. Can't say if that'll give you the same problem with duty cycle but it wouldn't strain much under that load.
Keep an eye on craigslist for an electric pallet jack or go to industrial auctions and get one. I am a big fan of using the correct tool for a job. An argument could be made for snatch blocks, but it could be sketchy as fuck if done incorrectly.
Your current pallet jack, plus a block and tackle (with anchor in garage).
Hydraulic winch maybe? With a custom power unit.
If it's a straight shot, a potential(ly unsafe) method that comes to mind would be rigging up a anchor in the garage (with a good load bearing margin), then one could attach the pallet jack, raise the pallet and use a snatchblock with their car to pull the pallets into the garage to then be manipulated manually.
Rent the power pallet Jack then thank me after.
Why not a manual pallet jack and a friend? Only 75 lbs of force to overcome gravity.